Ontario cities seek billions for super hospitals

Ottawa is not the only Ontario city in search of a super hospital. There is a kind of hospitals arms race underway, with numerous communities seeking billions of dollars from the debt-ridden provincial government to build 21st century health infrastructure.

Given the competition, timing could be crucial.

The Ottawa Hospital’s chief executive. Dr. Jack Kitts, hinted last week that timing could play a role in Ottawa’s ability to get provincial funding for a proposed $2-billion super hospital.

“We are kind of in a race with Windsor,” he said in an interview with the Citizen after a breakfast speech to the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce. “We are all trying to get the money.”

Windsor, like Ottawa, is in the early stages of planning for a modern hospital to be built within the next 10 to 15 years. Like Ottawa’s, it is expected to cost $2 billion, said Windsor Regional Hospital CEO and president David Musyj.

Windsor is further along than Ottawa in the complex planning process. It held eight months of public consultations about a site in 2012, has done preliminary planning on the design, and now is looking at more detailed planning.

Ottawa is re-evaluating a site for the hospital to counter growing controversy and concern from the new federal government over proposed location. Only then can it get provincial approval and begin preliminary planning.

Dr. Jack Kitts, CEO of The Ottawa Hospital, speaks about his vision for the hospital of the future at the Eggs n’ Icons event at the Sheraton Hotel in Ottawa on Feb. 17, 2016. (David Kawai)David Kawai

Windsor’s plans have also hit speed bumps in the form of criticism from a local advocacy group waging a campaign to keep the hospital in that city’s core, rather than moving it to the edge of the city. There was also a lawsuit, since dropped, over the site selection by bidder whose property was not selected.

“We are competing for a finite amount of health dollars,” he said. “We have to live in reality. Our government has an operating deficit. We have $300 billion of debt. As a result, there are limited resources available for these types of projects.”

A provincial spokesman said the government considers each project on its merit and it’s early to talk about funding approvals for projects that are still at very preliminary stages.

Ottawa and Windsor are only two Ontario cities hoping to build a modern hospital.

The Niagara region is also looking for a new hospital, as are Vaughan, Scarborough, Durham and Muskoka, according to Musyj.

Kitts argues that Ottawa’s need to replace the aging Civic is particularly urgent. Parts of the nearly century-old hospital are now permanently closed, he said, because they are unsafe. Its piecemeal design, with sections added over the decades, also makes it more difficult to maintain infection control and wastes crucial seconds transferring critically ill patients from one floor to another.

The Ottawa Hospital is rethinking the location of a new hospital under growing pressure from the public and the federal Liberal government. Its preferred site would result in the destruction of historic research fields at the Central Experimental Farm and the erosion of a national historic site. Ottawa Liberal MP and cabinet minister Catherine McKenna has said she has concerns about building a hospital on the site.

Musyj said transparency is crucial when it comes to making such an important decision. Windsor set up a public panel to review possible sites and spent the better part of a year on public consultations, he said. Even so, there has been pushback about the site it selected on the edge of the city.

“The decision is going to be controversial. The quickest way to make that decision even more controversial is to not have a (selection) process to fall back on.”

There is another benefit to a public selection process he said. “It gets people engaged and sends a loud, strong message to the minister. If there are limited (provincial) resources, we need that voice and support.”

Windsor’s site selection system is in contrast to Ottawa’s, where then-Conservative MP and cabinet minister John Baird announced 60 acres of the Central Experimental Farm would be transferred for a new hospital. There were no consultations. McKenna said she has been unable to find any record of how that decision was made.

There is another key difference between Windsor’s approach to a new hospital and Ottawa’s. Windsor will ask property owners to help pay the community’s $200 million share of its cost through a municipal tax levy, something also being done in Vaughan.

In Ottawa, Kitts has said the $400 million that will make up the community share of the new hospital will be raised from donors — the biggest fundraising campaign in the hospital’s history.

No one in Ottawa is talking about a property tax levy to raise the money.

Ottawa councillor Riley Brockington said he joked with Kitts that $400 million would be “one large telethon. But he gave me the impression that there was capacity in this community to raise it.”

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